The Gathering Dark Part 22

"Keomany," she said, and then she rushed down the steps, pushed past Peter, wrapped her arms around Keomany, and began to cry. "You're okay. We saw . . . on the TV . . . about Wickham and we thought . . ."

"Ssh, it's okay, Tori," Keomany said. "It's okay. I'm all right."

Peter studied the two women, trying to interpret their friends.h.i.+p, their intimacy. Keomany had explained that Tori Osborne and Cat Hein were partners and that the two women owned Summerfields together, but he had not realized that Keomany was as close to them as it now appeared.

Tori sobbed quietly as she tried to regain her composure. The tears glistened like diamonds on her extraordinary ebony skin. Her hair was shoulder length, tied into tight rows, tendrils weighted with beads that clacked together whenever she moved her head.

"What's going on. Tori?" Keomany asked. "Why are you closed?"

The woman took a deep breath and let it out slowly, calming herself. "You think anyone's going to shop when s.h.i.+t like this is happening in the world? Gaea's in pain, Keomany. A lot of us felt it. They've been showing up for the last few days, some of 'em witches we didn't even know."

As though someone had whispered a hint of paranoia in her ear, Tori stopped suddenly and glanced at Peter and Nikki, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"They're friends," Keomany said quickly, running a comforting hand along Tori's bicep. "They're friends, honey. Nikki Wydra, Peter Octavian, this is Tori Osborne. Tori. Meet Peter and Nikki."

The woman looked curious when she heard Nikki's name and visibly flinched when Keomany mentioned Peter's. Tori stared at him.

"The mage," she said. "You're the mage."

Peter inclined his head, the briefest of nods. It was unnerving any time he met someone who knew who he was, and there were many of them. He was famous in his way; or rather, notorious. Many of his exploits had been doc.u.mented in the media, much as he had tried to downplay them in recent years. Given that he had no idea what the average earthwitch would think of his kind of magick, he hoped to avoid further conversation on the subject. Fortunately, his wasn't the only name Tori was familiar with. The woman's attention turned back to Nikki and she smiled tentatively.

"Nikki Wydra. You're not the singer, are you? The girl on the radio?"

A sad sort of smile drifted across Nikki's face. Peter imagined this was the last place she had expected to run into that question.

"I am, actually," she confessed.

Tori nodded toward her. "Love that song."

"Thank you."

But Tori had already moved on. Introductions made, she had turned her focus back on matters that were truly important and away from such trifling bits of business as celebrity and notoriety. As quickly as Peter and Nikki had been drawn into the circle of their conversation, Tori and Keomany now shut them out again. The two women spoke as though they were alone.

"Come in," Tori told her. "We're trying to get a sense of what's happening, what's really doing this, to see if we can help."

"We're doing the same," Keomany replied. "We . . . we met the thing in Wickham. Peter drove it out of there, but this thing is so much bigger than just one town."

"So much bigger," Tori agreed. "Cat's . . . Cat's in a bad way, Keomany."

With that, Tori led them up the front steps and through the door. The interior of the farmhouse was decorated in antiques, and punctuated with candles and potted plants. In a side parlor, Peter saw several women sitting together on the rug, eschewing chairs and sofa for the floor, and speaking softly to one another over mugs of coffee. In the corner of the room, two large, powerful-looking men ceased conversation to stare openly at them as they pa.s.sed.

The hallway took them into the large kitchen at the back of the house. Here cups and gla.s.ses and dishes had been abandoned, many with half-eaten bits of cake or the remains of fruit salad left behind. Tori turned right and led them through the kitchen. On the other side of that room was a doorway and it was from here that a commotion issued. More than just the noise of anxious women convening, an atmosphere of grievous urgency emanated from that open door that was tangible.

As if born of the intensity therein, a short, gray-haired, matronly woman poked her head into the kitchen and beckoned for them-or rather for Tori-to hasten their pace.

"It's getting worse," the woman said, sympathy choking her words.

Tori's mouth became a thin line, lips pressed tightly together. She pressed on into that other room as if she had forgotten the presence of her guests. Keomany did not hesitate to follow her, and so Peter and Nikki entered as well. Nikki held Peter's hand as they stepped into what must in quieter times have been a vast living room. Now the couches had been shoved against the walls, coffee tables and knick-knacks stacked on the far side, blocking a large entertainment center whose doors were closed, cutting off any music or television screen that might have lurked there, offering potential solace.

But there was no solace to be had. Sixteen, perhaps twenty women varying in size, age, and race sat cross-legged in a haphazard circle amid an array of burning candles just as varied as the women themselves. Their clothing differentiated them as well, separating them by style and by cla.s.s, as well as taste. Heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows off of that room and the candlelight threw ghostly flickers on the walls, the contorted shadows of witches. Several men were in the room as well, dark-eyed and grim-faced like their counterparts in the parlor, though they did not bother to even glance at the new arrivals Tori had brought with her.

None of them looked up, in fact.

The attention of every single person in the room was focused on a single location, the center of the gathering, where a woman of near Amazonian stature lay nude on the floor, sprawled on one side as though she had fallen there, and whimpering.

"I'm here, baby," Tori said, slipping easily through the circle, which parted for her and closed up again. The beads in her hair clacked together and the candlelight gleamed upon her skin as she knelt beside her lover.

"Cat," Keomany whispered. Then she spoke again, and now it was as though she were speaking to no one, or perhaps directly to the earth G.o.ddess whom they all wors.h.i.+pped. "What the h.e.l.l's happening?"

Nikki swore softly.

Peter could only stare. Catherine Hein was just as Keomany had described her. Over six feet tall and powerfully built, even with her pretty blond hair she must have been imposing under normal circ.u.mstances, when she was healthy. When she was conscious.

For now the only reaction evoked by the sight of the nude woman was the need to call an ambulance. But it would have been clear even to one with no knowledge of magick-magick of any kind-that no doctor could help Cat Hein.

Her entire body was covered with nearly bloodless cuts, as though a fine, tiny blade had carved upon her a map of the earth. Oceans and islands, continents, all had been engraved in the taut white flesh of the coven's leader in minute detail. From where Peter stood, he could see what appeared to be North America. There were no lines to indicate divisions between nations-to Gaea, the natural soul of the world, nations did not exist-but in a place where he imagined Texas and Mexico kissed, on Cat's left thigh, there was an open wound. The flesh had been gouged out as if with a trowel, and yet once more there was almost no blood. Only the pulsing, raw red flesh inside that wound.

As Tori reached for her lover, Cat moaned and turned slightly, and Peter could see several other such wounds, including one on her belly that might have been northern California. Farther up her thigh, where Vermont would be, a thick scab had formed over a wound that was healing.

Wickham, Peter thought. That's Wickham That's Wickham.

A ripple of antic.i.p.ation spider-walked across the back of his neck. Keomany was a powerful earthwitch, but she herself had said that all of them revealed their connection to nature in different ways. Catherine Hein was so completely in tune with Gaea that it was tearing her apart.

"Turn her over!" Peter snapped.

Heads turned, eyes glared at him. Three of the women in the circle began to rise as if to protect Cat from this stranger in their midst, and the men across the room started to move toward him.

"Who the h.e.l.l is he?" hissed a Latina girl who looked barely old enough to drive.

Nikki instinctively moved closer to Peter and Keomany stepped between him and the circle.

"Tori," Peter said firmly.

The woman looked up, her carved ebony features hard with fear.

"I might be able to help her, at least for a little while," he told her, raising his hands so they all could see the glow of blue fire that crackled from his palms. "And together we might all be able to fight this. But it has to be together."

Tori sneered at him, lips curling back from strangely sharp teeth. "With your dirty magick, you're going to heal Gaea?"

Keomany held up a hand in front of a woman who tried to move closer to Peter, stopping her there.

"No," Peter said. "But I will find the power that's causing this. I'll find it, and I'll stand, and I'll fight. The healing will be up to all of you. I'm not your enemy."

His words echoed in the otherwise silent room, the only motion that of the flickering candle-shadows on the walls.

"Turn her over," he instructed again.

A fresh tear slipped down Tori's face as she stroked her unconscious lover. At length she turned and slid her hands delicately beneath Cat, careful to avoid the carved map of her flesh. Keomany slipped through the circle to help her and together they gently turned Cat onto her belly, her hair covering her face. Her left breast, partially crushed beneath her body, bulged out from beneath her splayed arm. On that soft whiteness, the sh.o.r.es of Iceland had been delineated in slit skin. As her body was turned, Peter saw more wounds, deep and numerous. Some of them were places the news had already reported as afflicted, others were a surprise to him.

Only one mark upon Cat Hein's body interested him, however.

On her back was a bright red welt smaller than a dime. Peter studied the macabre map of her skin and knew it was somewhere in Europe. He snapped his gaze up to glare at the men watching him cautiously from across the room.

"One of you get me a world map, right now!"

"What are you doing?" Tori demanded. "I thought you said you could help her."

This last was a grief-stricken plea. Peter ignored her, glaring at the men until one of them moved to a bookcase and began to scan through t.i.tles, looking for an atlas or an encyclopedia, anything that would have what Peter required.

"That's a new one," Keomany told Tori softly, pointing at the welt on Cat's back.

Nikki was speaking to all of them, however. She glanced around defiantly. "Wherever that is, it's where the darkness is going to fall next. Your friend is in terrible pain and we want to help her. But don't you think Gaea's touched her like this for a reason? Your G.o.ddess is in agony and she's connected to Cat the only way she knows how right now. She's showing us where she hurts, showing us where she's been blooded, so we can help her."

Tori softly sobbed and lay down beside Cat, brus.h.i.+ng the hair from the unconscious woman's face, whispering soft intimacies to her that everyone tried not to hear.

"Got it," said one of the men, a bearded man who looked more like a biker than some earth magician. He strode over to Peter with a thick book and handed it over. "It's a history book, but it's got world maps. Maybe not exactly up to date, but-"

"Fine," Peter said quickly, s.n.a.t.c.hing the book up and leafing it open. He could have told the man that he had spent centuries walking this world and had no problem at all comparing age-old geography with that of the present day. He remembered. But what would be the point? The man would not have understood.

In the back of the book was a foldout map of Europe, circa 1881. With the book open, Peter stepped through the circle. The women parted reluctantly for him. Whatever chanting or praying they had been doing around Cat before he and his friends had arrived, it was long forgotten now. Several candles guttered out, disturbed by his pa.s.sing.

Peter held the book out and compared it to the grotesque topography on Cat Hein's bare flesh.

"Spain," he said aloud. He had thought it was Spain but now confirmed it. Carefully he held his finger above the map, then tapped the name of a city written there in boldface black.

"There," he said, his voice a rasp. "The Tatterdemalion's creatures are going there next."

He dropped the book, let it thump to the floor, and held out his hands above Cat's body. Blue fire spread from his fingers and expanded. Two of the men swore and threw themselves backward. The other raced toward Peter with a cry of alarm but Nikki grabbed the man and pushed him backward. He tried to fight her, but Nikki could hold her own. She tripped him and sent him sprawling to the ground.

Most of the earthwitches scattered. Several began to call upon Gaea and a frigid wind lashed at Peter, coming up from nowhere, impossibly, and creating an icy bl.u.s.ter around him.

"Please!" Tori cried, but Peter did not know if she was appealing to him to stop, or to continue.

The spell he had cast was a ward of sorts, and his sorcery lifted Cat from the ground, her arms and hair dangling beneath her. A coc.o.o.n of blue light swirled around her, holding her there aloft.

Her wounds began to disappear.

"What'd you do to her?" Nikki asked.

But it was Tori to whom Peter explained. "I've cut her off for now. Put a barrier between Cat and her G.o.ddess. Gaea can't touch her and Cat won't have any access to earthcraft for now. Just for a while. Just until this is over."

"It's going to kill her, to be cut off from nature," Tori said sadly. "When she wakes up-"

Peter stared at her. "Cutting her off was the only way to keep her alive. When this is done, I can restore her. But for now we have to take the gift that Gaea gave her and stop this before there's nothing left of this world to save."

Tori nodded. She glanced once more at the strange spectacle of her lover bathed in blue light, hovering above the ground, and then she rose. Slowly, she embraced Keomany and then walked over to Peter and Nikki.

"Where is it?" she asked. "That new wound. Where the darkness is attacking now. Where are you going?"

"It's in Spain," Peter said. "A small town there called Ronda. I only wish I knew how quickly the darkness claims these places, how fast the Whispers take over."

The p.r.o.ne, levitating form of Catherine Hein shuddered. Cat moaned, there in that blue, sorcerous light. She spoke three words that, though muttered softly, as though talking in her sleep, everyone in the room heard with utter clarity.

"Whispers travel fast."

Only the gleam of the moon illuminated the interior of the Mondragon Palace. Night had fallen in Ronda and the building was closed now to tourists, who would be left to wander the streets or return to their hotels to await the traditional late Spanish dinner hour. The courtyards and gardens were empty, though the fountains still burbled and the wind swept up off the valley floor to rustle the leaves in the trees. Pears bobbed at the ends of branches on the lone fruit tree in the garden.

Just inside, in the moon-glazed dark, a droplet of light appeared seven feet above the ground. It glistened and grew heavy and then it slipped slowly toward the tile floor, a tear drop on the face of reality. As it slid downward, it left a streak of silver behind, a gleaming slit that began to pout open and quickly blossomed until it grew to the shape of an enormous rose petal. Its surface was like a liquid mirror, absorbing and reflecting back the moonlight within the palace.

The tear drop touched the tiles.

A black, razor-taloned hand emerged from within the silver portal, sending ripples to its edges. It was a tentative hand, reaching and searching, as though cautious of what it might find.

Then the first of the Whispers slipped through into Ronda. Others followed. Safe in the moonlight, they skittered through the city in the night black shadows, investigating each cellar and enclosure so that they might wreak dark havoc upon Ronda and still be able to secrete themselves before dawn's light, hiding until the second night, when their master would come to claim them, and this new city, for his own.

15.

Jack Devlin hated to fly under normal circ.u.mstances. Today's flight was anything but. Most of the world's major airlines had severely curtailed departures as the news had broken of the crisis that had now affected much of the globe. Flights that went anywhere near affected areas had to be rerouted due to fear of what might happen if a plane flew into affected airs.p.a.ce. Then the cancellations had begun. Pilots called in sick, pa.s.sengers gave up their travel plans and went home. Bad enough to wonder what might happen to your own hometown, but on board a plane flying overhead, one had to think about the consequences if a city below suddenly went the way of Salzburg or Mont de Moreau.

Toronto was gone now too.

Now Jack found himself on a private plane high over the Atlantic Ocean with only a dozen other Church of the Resurrection clerics for company and not a gla.s.s of whiskey in sight. And d.a.m.n it if he couldn't have used that whiskey now.

He glanced out the window, doing his best to ignore the imposing presence of Bishop Gagnon beside him. Jack had been summoned to that seat beside His Eminence not as a place of honor, but as a kind of punishment, not unlike a student being called to the princ.i.p.al's office.

"You're awfully quiet, Father Devlin," the Bishop said.

"Just tired, I guess," Jack replied immediately, an automatic response.

Without looking, somehow he could still see in his mind's eye the way the Bishop must have pursed his lips then, as though disdainfully tasting those words.

"At some point, Jack, you're going to stop sulking and realize that Peter Octavian is not your friend. Once upon a time, he was one of them them. Even those few that remain are still a blight on this world. An infection. If Octavian had not destroyed the Catholic sect of sorcerers that kept demon manifestations in check, it's likely none of this would be happening at all. Perhaps he isn't a vampire anymore, but whatever he is, it isn't human human."

The engines of the small jet purred, making the seat hum beneath him. Jack felt it in his gritted teeth, in the taut muscles at the back of his neck and across his shoulders. Sulking Sulking, he thought. a.s.shole a.s.shole.

Slowly, Jack turned to face the Bishop. Solely to keep his hands too busy to wring the old man's neck, he reached up and removed his gla.s.ses.

"If you studied your history, Michel," he said, all traces of friends.h.i.+p gone from his voice, "you might discover that it was the mishandling of the species in the first place that led to the cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k that brought the church down. The same ignorant bulls.h.i.+t you're preaching now, Your Eminence. Your Eminence. Octavian has already proven more capable of confronting this crisis than we are and it's p.i.s.sing you off. Why not admit it? Octavian has already proven more capable of confronting this crisis than we are and it's p.i.s.sing you off. Why not admit it?

"You want to blame him? Why? Because he and others like him performed sorcery over the ages that perforated our reality with badly repaired breaches into other dimensions? Fine. Blame him. But if you do that, you'll have to share the blame, Michel. Unlike you, I've done my research. I know for instance, that the original breach in Derby was caused in large part by a spell cast by a small group of Roman priests, and that you were among them. The sect you're talking about probably punched more holes in the barrier between worlds than the f.u.c.king ancient Egyptians, and we know how experimental they were.

"So don't go pointing fingers, Michel. You need all the help you can get."